A comparison between "Wuthering Heights" and "Great Expectations"
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
In the Victorian era, there were many novels written about love and its consequences. Romantic love, particularly in this time period, is often characterized by the works of Emily Brontë and Charles Dickens, especially in the novels Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations. While both...
An analysis of "The Masterpiece" by Emile Zola
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Each artist's life is surrounded by passion. It can be a pleasant association, one filled with success and inspiration, or it can be deadly and obsessive. In the case of Emile Zola's "The Masterpiece", Claude Lantier, a young painter, is consumed with creating his vision, his life's...
Gay rights as viewed by the utilitarianism theory
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
John Stuart Mill once wrote, "I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people actually desire it" (42). Every person has their own view of happiness, and according to Mill's theory of utilitarianism, the greatest good comes from that which makes...
An analysis of "As Nature Made Him" by John Colapinto
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
There are many different ways to be uncomfortable in one's own skin. Each individual is never satisfied with their appearance, or some other aspect of their everyday lives, like their jobs. However, there are many cases where people are so unsatisfied in their own skin that they ask for a...
Rene Descartes v. Thomas Nagel: perspectives on the mind and consciousness
Book review - 2 pages - Philosophy
The idea of what makes a person a person has been debated for many centuries. Many philosophers have pondered that exact question and have come up with many different and distinct possibilities. Rene Descartes and Thomas Nagel, two renowned philosophers, have written extensively on the subject,...
The writing style and influence of Anderson Sherwood
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Anderson Sherwood was an important and influential figure in American literature. His works have helped to motivate writers by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. In his works Queer and Sophistication, Anderson allows his readers a glimpse of what life was like for...
John Keats's Cold Eve of St. Agnes
Case study - 2 pages - Literature
"The Eve of St. Agnes" is a poem that begins and ends in the cold. The story that forms the bulk of the text, and its most memorable elements, includes more dramatic and traditional narrative forms: entrance, conflict, and exit. However, Keats does not choose to include these narrative elements...
Joseph: a man of God or a man of faith?
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
When reading a story, the way we choose to interpret it has much to do with the author's tone as well as his intention. In other words, one story can send two radically different messages based on the way that it is written. If we analyze the story of Joseph in both the Old Testament and in...
Greek mythological plays, where the Gods are in charge
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In Greek mythological tragedies, there is a persistent belief among the characters that a variety of gods control the course of events and the actions of men and women. The gods took a variety of forms in these plays, and they would often speak directly with human beings and inform them about...
Personal desire vs. fidelity: Sir Gawain and Sir Lancelot
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
There are many ways to understand desire and to define it properly, but in doing so, it is important that we do not fail to mention the elements essential to desire and their corresponding affect on our intentions. Desire is often difficult to attain because it is always pushed back on the list...
Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats - Escaping the realities of time through immortality
Case study - 1 pages - Literature
When we analyze human affairs and relationships, there is a constraint that we understand all too well: time. Regardless of the significance of the action that is taking place, without a doubt, it all eventually comes to an end. In his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn", John Keats escapes this...
"Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave" - Douglass
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
In "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave," Douglass tells us about his life during slavery. He demonstrates with explicit details how cruel and morally wrong slavery was, and he also describes, in bitter detail, how the system of slavery made cruel all those who...
Whether animals have rights: the perspectives of Tom Regan vs. Peter Singer
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
The animal rights movement is often oversimplified and mocked by many in contemporary society, and this is often a result of an unwillingness to look at the facts and the various philosophies that make up the movement. An individual caught up in the ideas of the day is often unable to think...
"The Demon in the Freezer" by Richard Preston
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
In "The Demon in the Freezer", Richard Preston gives us a very detailed and frightening description of the current state of the smallpox virus. Although it is technically located only in two locations throughout the world, Preston suggests that it still poses a major threat to human civilization....
Understanding the Narrator in "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener", the narrator is confronted with a very difficult and unusual situation. A scrivener hired by the narrator, Bartleby, has stationed himself in the narrators' office and gradually becomes more and more difficult and increasingly stubborn. At first...
The importance of Siegried Sassoon's letter in 'Regeneration', by Pat Barker
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
First of all it's important to know that this letter has actually been written by the real Sassoon. He was a poet and even if his first poems were kind of romantic, he is mostly famous for his poems about war. In these war poems, he describes the horror and the barbarism of war with gruesome...
Utilitarianism - John Stuart Mill, 1861 - Chapter II
Book review - 2 pages - Philosophy
John Stuart Mill was one of the staunchest supporters of Utilitarianism, as well as one of the influential developers of the theory. In chapter two of Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill takes on the various criticisms of the theory and refutes them one by one as either misapplication or the...
Prometheus unbound - Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1920 - Act I
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In Act I of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound", the story begins with the introduction of the mentally and physically tortured Prometheus bound to a rock. The reason for his confinement is revealed to be punishment for teaching the secret of fire to humanity, and defying...
Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath Tale - Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century - The hypocrisy of men in society
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, "The Wife of Bath" is powerful and beautifully expressed work. In the tale, the Wife of Bath describes her five marriages while criticizing the hypocrisy and irrationality of men. She forces us to realize that men subdue their women and leave them little room to...
Sophism, Pericles and Platon's Apology
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Sophism deals with the human ability to use language for the purpose of convincing and persuading someone. Although the actual meaning of sophism is much more complex, the idea is that a good understanding of sophist principles allows one to achieve a high status and great success in political...
Canterbury Tales, The Miller's Tale - Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
People who are gullible are often taken advantage of by the people whom they respect. When a person admires somebody, it is very likely that he or she can be easily misled into doing something that they would otherwise never do. In Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale", we are introduced to an...
Michael Foucault: power is productive
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
Since the beginning of time, power has been an issue in many different ways; how to gain it, how to keep it, how to destroy it. According to Michel Foucault, "power is productive". Power is what molds society into what is, and what it should be. Foucault believed that through repression,...
Theory of Speech, language - Noam Chomsky
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
While Noam Chomsky is perhaps better known for his liberal political views and philosophies which support a variety of social causes, such as helping the poor, condemning wars, violence, and poverty, he is also a world renowned linguist. Chomsky has developed interesting theories in speech which...
Theory of evolution and the beak of the finch - Jonathan Weiner, 1995
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
When we imagine the process of evolution, we tend to picture it as an extremely slow, gradual process. It takes millions of years for some frog to change colors and camouflage to its surroundings, and it takes just as long for a fish to improve its structure and achieve the maneuverability...
A Temporary Matter - Jhumpa Lahiri, 1998
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
In the story "A Temporary Matter", by Jhumpa Lahiri, we are introduced to a married couple in the process of grieving over their still-born baby. As the couple tries to recover from this disappointment, their behaviors and attitudes change significantly. They stop associating with their friends,...
On the Road - Jack Kerouac, 1957
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
"On the Road", by Jack Kerouac, is a powerful novel about a group of friends who travel throughout the United States and go through various adventures. They represent a group of people who are always on the move, never willing to commit to anything, and live life with passion and recklessness. In...
Macbeth, William Shakespeare, 1623 - A patriotic greed
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Patriotism is the unrivaled love for one's country. In Macbeth (hereinafter referred to as "the Play"), personal influence is always stronger than patriotism. Although Macbeth and Banquo was loyal in fighting off the rebellion, patriotism no longer exists. Without the unity of war, there is...
Macbeth, William Shakespeare, 1623 - Freewill, in Macbeth: the destiny to choose
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Every piece of life seems to be interconnected. They can be the pieces to a puzzle, or they can be a perception of a whole. In both cases, life is a culmination of one's actions. In Macbeth (hereinafter referred to as "the Play"), a predetermined path seems to be set for Macbeth. From the...
Cane by Jean Toomer
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Double consciousness is defined as a concept that describes an individual as having an identity divided into several parts. This makes it difficult for an individual to have a sole unified identity. As such, a person with double consciousness may be considered to have two thoughts, two souls or...
Figures of speech
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Lapham begins by telling us that the Notebook Magazine had become so much focused with the new print method of letting their readers know about the current ways of the world which was intended to acquaint them with presupposition of its editor. “Notebook was deeply rooted in the soils of...
